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That's what public sector bus drivers--unionized of course--expected, demanded, and went on strike 44 days for a few years ago in Minnesocold.

Only public sector pigs at the trough could expect such lavish benefits not seen in the private sector for comparable jobs. the public turned against them, and then-gov. Tim palenty won. He looks pretty good to me.

Last year, for the first time, the number of unionized public employees exceeded the number of unionized private workers--7.9 million to 7.4 million.

Now, since the country has five times as many private jobs as public ones, this was possible only because the public unionization rate (37.4 percent) was more than five times higher than the private one (7.2 percent).

Another big difference: The average federal worker is compensated at $123,000 a year, including $42,000 in benefits--more than twice what the average private worker gets. (State and local government employees don't do as well, but still beat private-sector pay.)

And these days a public job is a lot more likely to be truly a 9 to 5 affair than a private one.

The only leeches around here are the lazy right wing reactionaries who rely on sites like Big Government, or better still you tube compilation videos to come up with half truths and hysteria...

No one gets a pension after 15 years of driving a school bus...

If something sounds too good to be true it usually is, it is easy to post hysterical half truths and is often symbolic of a weak mind, not interested in searching for the truth.. it is akin to just another rumpswab following along without researching the issue..

Overall, federal workers earned an average salary of $67,691 in 2008 for occupations that exist both in government and the private sector, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The average pay for the same mix of jobs in the private sector was $60,046 in 2008, the most recent data available.

â€¢State and local. State government employees had an average salary of $47,231 in 2008, about 5% less than comparable jobs in the private sector. City and county workers earned an average of $43,589, about 2% more than private workers in similar jobs. State and local workers have higher total compensation than private workers when the value of benefits is included.

Furthermore, the $123,049 average compensation figure for federal workers is greatly inflated â€” and several thousand dollars too high. The BEA tells us that total compensation includes an unknown amount for retireesâ€™ health and life insurance benefits. More importantly, it includes billions of dollars that Congress appropriates each year to pay "unfunded liabilities" for retirees and current workers covered by the old Civil Service Retirement System before it was replaced for newly hired workers starting Jan. 1, 1987. These payments for former workers obviously donâ€™t benefit current workers, and should not be included in their average total compensation..

One way to compare the data would be to look at similar jobs, while taking into account geographic areas and years of service. But even then, the numbers can tell conflicting stories.

In the Washington area, where roughly 10 percent of federal employees work, a private accountant earns an average annual salary of $49,800, compared with $43,432 for a GS-7 accountant, according to data from the Human Resource Association of the National Capital Area. But an editor in the GS-9 to GS-12 range earns an average of $75,269 annually, versus $63,300 for a private sector editor.

In reality, the question of whether or not federal employees are overpaid doesn't have a simple answer, according to Charles Fay, a professor at Rutgers University and former Federal Salary Council member. Those in entry-level jobs in the government might earn more than entry-level jobs private practice, he notes, while the opposite is true for those in management and specialized fields requiring years of experience.

"The higher you go, the more they're underpaid," Fay says. "The lower they go, the more they're overpaid."

In Georgia, these employees are vested after 10 years as school district employees. Go to page 21 for an example of a school bus driver with 15 years service and their pension.....
Edit- This was the second thing that popped up on a Google search. I'm sure there are others but you get the point.

Whereas the current standard for being vested in a pension plan is 5 years.

Being vested doesn't mean you collect a full retirement. It means whatever formula they use applies and your retirement is now portable. So if you work 5 years you get a small pension from a place. If you work 50 years you get more accrued benefits.

As to the assault on the feds, Darryl's quotes seem much more germane to me.

The higher you go in the scale, the more likely you are to be underpaid; the lower down you are, the more likely you are to be overpaid. That is something you would expect from a flatter compensation curve than you find in the private sector.

Second point - They're counting the CSRS pensions from before the last time we all had to be up in arms about federal workers as averaged into the compensation of current federal hires.

So basically, you're saying that the last round of potshots at feds shouldn't even be counted as having happened.

Tell you what - you can go ahead and reduce my pension to what it already is, which is a small amount every month.

Since you're incensed not at me, but at the former federal pension system, I should think that would be more than sufficient.

This periodic bullsh1t, frankly, is just annoying.

Private sector employment is up over the last few months, and public sector is down... and it's a pubbie "win" if the economy/jobless rate is still high in '12. Put two and two together.

The goal of the currently contemplated cuts is to curtail the desire of people to work for government, and encourage people to leave government employment, reducing the workforce through attrition.

So, you kill several birds with one stone -

1) pubbies hate the government, in the abstract - so if the gubmit gets smaller or cheaper, that's good (without regard to unintended consequences.) In the main, this is a defensible position for most dems as well.

2) pubbies hate the civil servants themselves, as seen in the comment stream on this thread. So no amount of vitriol directed at civil servants is ever enough to get the job done in the Echo Chamber, and no amount of theft from the public-sector worker is ever "a bridge too far." So another campaign against the civil servants scratches that itch.

3) Having bashed the private sector unions, pubbies -- who also hate unions -- now go to mop up the public sector unions, complaining that "oh look, they're unionized at a far higher rate than the private sector!"

Comical, since that's been an emerging difference since the union-bashing of the last 30 years. The other solution to such a difference, if we define such a difference as a "problem," is to re-unionize the private sector.

But the idiotic drumbeat is just "oh look how unfair! They still have unions in the public sector!!!! It's only fair to make sure they don't have unions either!"

As I have always said, if you are so jealous of public sector workers, go out and get a public sector job.

That is, if you're good enough. And if the jobs are so good I can only imagine most of you guys have tried to and failed.

Public Sector leeches is a broad term and could be used to folks who availed themselves of a free education at a military academy and did not learn critical thinking skills.. just think 200K+ of the taxpayers money wasted so lessons can be learned on Breitbart Compilation video's..

So the bottom-line is that no public sector pension should be funded by the public. If they're going to make the same as a private sector worker, then like the private sector worker, they should be funding their own retirement...after all, the average American jane & joe don't want to pay for it!

Whereas the current standard for being vested in a pension plan is 5 years.

Being vested doesn't mean you collect a full retirement. It means whatever formula they use applies and your retirement is now portable. So if you work 5 years you get a small pension from a place. If you work 50 years you get more accrued benefits.

As to the assault on the feds, Darryl's quotes seem much more germane to me.

The higher you go in the scale, the more likely you are to be underpaid; the lower down you are, the more likely you are to be overpaid. That is something you would expect from a flatter compensation curve than you find in the private sector.

Second point - They're counting the CSRS pensions from before the last time we all had to be up in arms about federal workers as averaged into the compensation of current federal hires.

So basically, you're saying that the last round of potshots at feds shouldn't even be counted as having happened.

Tell you what - you can go ahead and reduce my pension to what it already is, which is a small amount every month.

Since you're incensed not at me, but at the former federal pension system, I should think that would be more than sufficient.

This periodic bullsh1t, frankly, is just annoying.

Private sector employment is up over the last few months, and public sector is down... and it's a pubbie "win" if the economy/jobless rate is still high in '12. Put two and two together.

The goal of the currently contemplated cuts is to curtail the desire of people to work for government, and encourage people to leave government employment, reducing the workforce through attrition.

So, you kill several birds with one stone -

1) pubbies hate the government, in the abstract - so if the gubmit gets smaller or cheaper, that's good (without regard to unintended consequences.) In the main, this is a defensible position for most dems as well.

2) pubbies hate the civil servants themselves, as seen in the comment stream on this thread. So no amount of vitriol directed at civil servants is ever enough to get the job done in the Echo Chamber, and no amount of theft from the public-sector worker is ever "a bridge too far." So another campaign against the civil servants scratches that itch.

3) Having bashed the private sector unions, pubbies -- who also hate unions -- now go to mop up the public sector unions, complaining that "oh look, they're unionized at a far higher rate than the private sector!"

Comical, since that's been an emerging difference since the union-bashing of the last 30 years. The other solution to such a difference, if we define such a difference as a "problem," is to re-unionize the private sector.

But the idiotic drumbeat is just "oh look how unfair! They still have unions in the public sector!!!! It's only fair to make sure they don't have unions either!"

As I have always said, if you are so jealous of public sector workers, go out and get a public sector job.

That is, if you're good enough. And if the jobs are so good I can only imagine most of you guys have tried to and failed.

What's the current vesting schedule for healthcare until age 65? That was the OT.

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Apparently I am becoming comprehension-challenged. I can't find, in any of the links provided, anything which says public sector employees are vested in healthcare until 65.

If you would, please point it out to me or at least tell me which link states this. I, for one, find it hard to believe.

Most employers, both public and private, allow their retirees to participate in their health care program (as a secondary insurance to Medicare or as a primary if collecting pension benefits between 60 and 65) but the employees are expected to pay for it themselves. I know for a fact it works that way in the federal government because I pay my mother's portion of her supplementary BC/BS plan.

I'd love to see where someone is paying the entire amount or offers it to people who are not collecting retirement or disability payments.

Doesn't happen in the private sector very often anymore, regardless of tenure.

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Like I said, I don't think it happens in the public sector, either....Please point me to where it says that. I did read through the Georgia school plan - and they, too, pay for their insurance out of their retirement benefits - it even states that if the payment is larger than their benefit check they must directly pay the amount owed to the health insurance company themselves.

What if my retirement check is not enough to cover my
health insurance?
In this case, the health insurance department bills you directly.

There are only 4 deductions: federal taxes, state taxes, health insurance,
and dental insurance. If you do not carry health insurance or
dental insurance with PSERS, then those deductions are not made

Since the OT is "[personal slur against any public sector worker]... 15 years = lifetime health care benefits",

There is no OT.

They pay into health insurance, then the insurance covers them, from what we've actually seen here.

I'll join the Mrs. in a request to show that public sector workers in GA get lifetime health benefits free once they have worked 15 years.

PFnV

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Insurance during retirement is a rare perk. Do you pay your premiums 20 years in advance now? Usually you pay for coverage during the covered period. This is a treat, not a service that has been paid for in full by the recipient.

I'll leave it to the OP to provide what you were asking for. I was just pointing out that pensions and retirement health insurance are separate.

I don't know about Georgia, but I know people in Massachusetts who have their health care coverage paid-in-full as part of their retirement. In fact, some plans even allowed them to opt out of Medicare, putting the state or town on the hook for lifetime coverage. My town put an end to that noise, but I know that there are others who have that arrangement (my father-in-law's brother, for one).

I don't know about Georgia, but I know people in Massachusetts who have their health care coverage paid-in-full as part of their retirement. In fact, some plans even allowed them to opt out of Medicare, putting the state or town on the hook for lifetime coverage. My town put an end to that noise, but I know that there are others who have that arrangement (my father-in-law's brother, for one).

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I don't know about Massachusetts - seems like you guys have a bunch of benefits which other states do not have.

I do know that the federal government does not pay anywhere near "in full" health insurance benefits for their retirees.

In all honesty, the time has come to end all publically funded retirement benefits for public employees. If they're going to make around the same as private sector workers, why should the avg. taxpayer be funding their retirement (as in "any of it")? We should just set up 401k's for them and match up to 3%.

Especially since most state & local jobs are secured by "who you know". There is a high level of unfairness in these 2 arena's. Add to that the fact that jobs are extremely hard to get and many private sector companies are even doing away with matching contributions.

In all honesty, the time has come to end all publically funded retirement benefits for public employees. If they're going to make around the same as private sector workers, why should the avg. taxpayer be funding their retirement (as in "any of it")? We should just set up 401k's for them and match up to 3%.

Especially since most state & local jobs are secured by "who you know". There is a high level of unfairness in these 2 arena's. Add to that the fact that jobs are extremely hard to get and many private sector companies are even doing away with matching contributions.

Anyone agree/disagree?

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When I worked for the state there was a move to do this, never gathered much steam.. this is being floated again, but the point is how to get from point A to point B.. as the currenty employees subsidize the retirees. Many of the young kids also did a deferred savings account also, they are living well.

FYI at one time I paid 15%+ of my salary for pension and social security contributions, this is increasing once again for current employees.

When I worked for the state there was a move to do this, never gathered much steam.. this is being floated again, but the point is how to get from point A to point B.. as the currenty employees subsidize the retirees. Many of the young kids also did a deferred savings account also, they are living well.

FYI at one time I paid 15%+ of my salary for pension and social security contributions, this is increasing once again for current employees.

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You're right, it would be difficult to implement. Maybe some would have to be grandfathered in and then start with new employees.

I also realize that many public sector employess pay a significant amount of their earnings into their retirement. But the true test is, are these employees getting more than they paid into the system? If they are, then the public is funding part of their retirement. Just look at the number of people employed by cities, states and the federal gov't! The number has gotten so large, it's become a burden upon the average taxpayer. And it's a burden we can't afford.

You're right, it would be difficult to implement. Maybe some would have to be grandfathered in and then start with new employees.

I also realize that many public sector employess pay a significant amount of their earnings into their retirement. But the true test is, are these employees getting more than they paid into the system? If they are, then the public is funding part of their retirement. Just look at the number of people employed by cities, states and the federal gov't! The number has gotten so large, it's become a burden upon the average taxpayer. And it's a burden we can't afford.

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Besides bytching what can be done?? Keep in mind most of the folks who collect pensions are in the 15-35K year range, all benefits are skewed by the fat cats at the top.

Besides bytching what can be done?? Keep in mind most of the folks who collect pensions are in the 15-35K year range, all benefits are skewed by the fat cats at the top.

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My biggest beef with gov't workers outside their costs to taxpayers is the number of them who get their jobs because they know someone. If I'm paying these workers, I don't want the buddies of elected officials on my payroll.